Wednesday, October 11, 2017

I have spent the past week packaging and mailing everything. It felt like gift wrapping 200 packages. Doing it all alone took so long, but I think (hope) that everyone will be happy with the packages. I have this habit of overdoing the packages possibly because I actually really do love package designs. I always thought that if I didn't become an artist, I'd be a graphic designer specializing in packages. My professional graphic designer friend told me that no one would hire me though because my package designs would cost too much to make lol. Nice Package design does add so much to the product to me though!

Anyways, before I go off on a tangent again, let's get back to the Kickstarter packages. Look! This is why it took me a week. I was staying up until 5 am for a few nights too @_@.

Tada! Almost 200 boxes.

I must say that I usually love those tear by hand packaging tape that Scotch makes, but when you have to package so many, I started to feel like it was peeling off the top layer of my fingers so much that it left my finger tip feeling all raw. Note to self: Next time, buy the regular packaging tape that's not only cheaper, but will save the outer layer of the skin of your finger too...

See, I hand cut all those strips of papers forgetting that everything I do is multiply by 200. I bought a pretty cork board display even if they are kind of pricy, but I really wanted these packages to feel much more special than what you'd normally get when you purchase pins.

And all the pins have a unique backing design and they have to be hand packaged as well. That's like a thousand pins. @_@;

Phew~ I wonder if it actually makes a difference to the receivers weather it comes in a nicely packaged box or just an envelope. I sure hope so :).

I think if I were to do this again, I need to do pre-launch posts, plan better stretch goals, and plan more updates. I now also know how the reward system works, so it will be more clear next time. Once someone pledge, I couldn't change the description. At first 5 pins were the original designs for the complete set, but I went and added on a few more pins, so eventually, 8 pins became a complete set. I ended up just giving the last extra pin to anyone that pledged for 7 pins or more, so they didn't have to go and change they pledge again.

Overall, Kickstarter was a lot more work than I thought. For someone who is not really involved much with Social Media, I really had to push myself to interact with everyone much more. Now that the campaign is all over, I feel so tired lol. I did do paintings for the few that pledged for "artist packs". I have some more left to do. Hopefully, everyone will get something they like. "Artist packs" are fun because I get to do something that feels really personal for the ones that like original art works. Overall, the campaign was still for Enamel pins, so I wanted to do these as very special tiers.

Thank you so much for all the people that supported me. I am going to try to be better at posting sketches and drawings from now on. (Now that I know that there are some people looking and following lol). I am actually going to be going to more life-drawing sessions, so I will post some of those as well!

Sunday, August 6, 2017

I have launched my first Kickstarter campaign! It's been so fun. I did a campaign that's about 25 days long. I have already reached my goal and there are still 2 weeks left. If this works out, I can come up with more series of pins, and that would be so awesome because I have so many sketches and ideas~

Since the campaign is going so well, I decided to add some stickers to give to all my Backers as well. I'm so grateful for all the support. I'm terrible at social media and marketing, so I was surprise that I got so many supporters. It's also very fun to be able to get feedback and suggestions from everyone.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

We have a dealer's table at Wonder Con this year. I hand painted the backdrop this time. It's so hard to paint large scale! I'm not used to it, so I felt that it was slightly crooked in the end, but overall I was happy with it. I thought it'd be nice to be able to get some neon colors into the banner which I couldn't get with normal printing. Plus, hand painted background feels more personal than printed ones to me.

Tada! Wonder Con 2016 Set up. Neon Pink is really bright!

Aww~ Little Kids with Baby Yeti and Baby Sasquatch plushes

I got to meet so many old friends and I also made some new friends too! It's different at Comic Con because it's extremely busy and our corner booth has two giant walls that separates us from our neighbors. It's so much more fun to be able to get to know your neighbors, and they are super talented Visual Development artists by the way. These are my neighbors at Wonder Con ^^. Kristina introduced me to a pastry called Gata and now I'm super addicted to it. :
Kristina Vardazaryan http://www.kristinavart.com/
Jonathan Hoekstra http://jonathanhoekstra.blogspot.com
Casey Robin http://caseyrobin.com/
Jeannine Schafer http://jeannineschafer.blogspot.com/

James is on vacation in Turkey *cough cough*, so I was watching the booth all alone. My friend, Gary, came by to help out on Saturday and Sunday and he was able to go around and take some pictures. I only made it to the small press area. I'm so sad that I didn't get a chance to walk around the Artist Alley. Thank you, Gary, for the pictures!

Of course there were tons of Cosplayers, and they are all amazing. We spotted many cute bags and backpacks too.

Waking Dead Cosplayers.

That's the end of Wonder Con 2016. I will be signing up for next year, and at the moment, I'm trying to see if FSc would like to join me as well *fingers crossed*.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

I want to make a popup book of this so badly. Plush cost is already killing me, so I don't know if I will ever get to it, but if I make a children book, I really want a pop-up book! At least I can dream right? lol.

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

So much thoughts and process were put into making these little BIG guys. There were a lot of revisions in order to get the pattern/color/details correct. Just getting the proportions right took a very long time. The hue and saturation of the embroidery has to be perfect in order for the color to work. Here is a glimpse of what was going on behind the scene.

Our Yeti and Sasquatch plush dolls are done! Yay! I have been reminded again how difficult it is to produce your own product. It was such a crazy process. There were times when I think "why am I doing this to myself?!" When it's my own product, I really do want to make sure it is "perfect". Well, as perfect as I can possibly make it with whatever means I have at least. Other than making sure that the translation of the design has to be done well, the materials also has to be carefully chosen. The colors of the materials also have to be just right. There were so many prototype revisions down to crazy changes on embroidery colors (subtle hue changes even) to make sure that everything looks right. My sister is the quality control girl and I couldn't do this with out her. She's so good at the little details.

Chillin

Baby Yeti Embroidery Details

Baby Sasquatch Embroidery Details

Bonus Pic of my 3 year old Nephew. Aww~

By the way, we will be selling them at San Diego Comic Con this year. Please come by and support!

Sunday, December 15, 2013

I've always wanted to draw the Little Match girl. It makes me so sad that no one would buy her matches. Why won't anyone buy her matches? T_T.

The Last Match...

Many things happened in the last 2 months. I went on a trip to Thailand and Japan and a work trip to Denmark as well. I got super sick on the way back on the plane :(. I was lucky to be in Japan while FSc was there too, so we got to hang out a lot. She introduced me to Fujijun. It's so fun to be able to around 2 very amazing artists. I found a stray kitten in Thailand and decided to keep him, so now I have to go back to pick him up because he has to wait 30 days after his rabies vaccination in order to leave the country. It was quite adventurous with the Kitten, but I will leave that story for the next post.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

It's SDCC 2013! We have a new location this year at Booth 5137. We really miss being next to our usual neighbors (Munky King and Poketo). However, this year's neighbors are super cool as well. We were next to Julie West, Gary Ham, and Scott Tolleson's booth. They have super cute and unique artworks. Right next to us is the Wacom booth too! After all these years, I finally found out the proper way to pronounce Wacom lol. They say it's Wah-com (not Way-com or Wack-om). Wa is a japanese word for "harmony" and Com is for "computer".

The crowd! You can't even walk...

We have a few new merchandise this year. One is the Penguin superhero costume. I'm glad that they really made a lot of people laugh and they were selling very well. I also got custom printed biodegradable balloons of puffer seals made. I always thought they'd look super cute floating around the convention. Sunny handmade some pillow plushes of Narwhals, Alligators, and Puffer seals, and we also had glow in the dark drawstring bags too.

There were a lot of happy faces. Some customers would come by everyday to buy new things or at least to say hello. A lot of people came to tell me how much they still love their yetis and penguins that they purchased 2 years ago. A few people stopped by to show me pictures of the purchased artworks that are now framed and hung on their walls. I was so touched! We really try hard to make sure that all of our merchandise are well made with really high quality materials, so we are so glad that people are noticing and appreciating that. On Saturday, Frank Frazetta's daughter came by and bought a lot of artworks. She said they are going in her dad's room next to his paintings! Camilla d'Errico and the people from Woolbuddy also stopped by. They are so sweet.

As usual, the cosplayers were amazing. There were also a lot of cool giveaways. Thank you James, Randy, and Sunny for helping out at the booth this year!

The crew: Sunny, me, and Randy. Thank you James for working at the booth while I stole these two out for pics.